


California Dreaming

by marguerite_26



Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: Fluff, Jealousy, M/M, Misunderstanding, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-18
Updated: 2012-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-02 04:18:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marguerite_26/pseuds/marguerite_26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompt: During San Diego Comic Con, Bradley gets jealous over Colin's flirty interview with Cody Deal</p>
            </blockquote>





	California Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [](http://dysonrules.livejournal.com/profile)[**dysonrules**](http://dysonrules.livejournal.com/) for the quick beta. This was originally written for the [Tin Hat Fest](http://marguerite-26.livejournal.com/572689.html), re-posting with beta fixes.
> 
> Originally posted Aug 23, 2011

Jetlag was a bitch. Bradley checked the clock again and the green glow of the digital numbers continued to read 8:30 with the little dot beside AM. He’d slept for about ten hours and he felt like he could sleep another twenty. He’d crashed hard last night after getting back from the con. He had a blurry memory of telling Colin he’d shower and meet him for drinks, then of his pillow looking so tempting he thought he’d close his eyes for a minute...

He groaned, scrubbing at his face. He still wore his clothes from the day before and they were rank. He stripped and climbed into the shower, finding a bit of life in the warm splash of water. In another twenty minutes, he was clean and awake and starving. Maybe he’d apologize to Colin with waffles.

He checked his phone – two missed calls from Colin and a text that said:

_I think you crashed. Arsehole. Just got a better offer anyway._

Bradley snorted. Anthony must’ve offered to take him out -- no way Colin would go clubbing with Katie, and he knew Colin didn’t know a soul in San Diego.

He knocked softly on Colin’s door, in case he was having a rare lie-in.

The door swung open a minute later. “Sorry.” Bradley’s cheeks heated, blinking from Cody Deal’s bare chest to the brass number 6007 on the door, mumbling, “Wrong room.” He spun around to go find the scrap of paper he’d scribbled Colin’s room number on. Maybe 6001?

“Hey! Brad, right?”

“Bradley. Yeah, right. You interviewed me yesterday.” Bradley turned, pasted on a smile, remembering all too well Colin’s coy smile through his own interview with Cody and the pink of his cheeks as they exchanged numbers. “Cory?”

“ _Cody._ ” Cody grinned, straight teeth, perfect in that Hollywood way. “You here to see Cols? I think he’s still in the shower.” He opened the door further to let Bradley through.

Bradley stared a fraction too long, his brain staling before entering. Cody watched Bradley enter the hotel room, his smirk saying he saw way more in Bradley’s surprise than Bradley ever wanted him to.

At the sound of a door opening, Bradley schooled his face.

“Lunkhead!” Colin greeted him with a gentle punch to the shoulder. Water still clung to his hair, a few drops trickling down his temple. “I can’t believe you feel asleep.”

“I can’t believe it, either.” His voice was off; he cleared his throat.

Cody beamed at him, stretching. Bradley’s eyes narrowed at the flex of muscle across that too-broad, daily gym work-out chest, wondering where Cody’s shirt was. His brain helpfully supplied _on the floor by the bed_. He didn’t dare look.

“So, _Brad_.” Cody moved to stand by Colin, his shoulder brushing Colin’s threadbare tee. “Did you come by for something specific? It’s still early and we were up pretty late.”

A headache throbbed behind Bradley's eye sockets. “Nothing important,” he muttered, charging for the door, suddenly desperate to leave.

“Bradley,” Colin called after him, but Bradley was already halfway out the door and didn’t look back. He needed food, coffee and a bit of space before he was ready to look Colin in the eye again.

~o~

Bradley opted for a window seat in the hotel restaurant and was rewarded ten minutes later when he caught a glimpse of Cody making his way out of the hotel and hailing a cab. He debated for a full minute, but he was never one to let things fester. He texted Colin before he could talk himself out of it.

  
_Cody Deal? Really?_   


It felt safe enough -- not overly invested, just a friend taking the mickey. Not a minute later he got a reply.

  
_where r u?_   


Happy that they are going to _not talk_ about this, Bradley texted back:

  
_downstairs. was hungry._   


He re-read the conversation thus far to check that he wasn’t obvious. He could do this by text. He had time to take a sip of coffee before his phone vibrated.

  
_order me waffles_   


His hand shook as he raised it to catch his waiter’s attention.

It wasn’t as though Colin knew how he felt, or that he'd never seen Colin with someone else or vice versa. But things had been changing for awhile now and Bradley had just broken off with Georgia. He’d come to San Diego feeling fantastic – free and in charge of his life and his career in a way he hadn’t in a long time.

And if he’d fantasised a bit that maybe being in the States together, enjoying the week they’d tacked on to their trip -- that maybe then he’d find the words to ask Colin if he could possibly...

He took a deep breath as Colin weaved his way through the tables and he forced a smile. Colin sat and Bradley clenched his fist, not able to stop himself checking Colin’s neck for love bites.

"Blueberries. My favourite." Colin's grin peeled a layer of ache from Bradley's chest, just like that.

"I know." _And no whipped cream_ ; he'd made the waiter write it down.

They sat in silence awhile, Colin humming his delight at the _real_ maple syrup while Bradley pushed around his almost-finished French toast, drawing it out so Colin wasn't eating alone.

Taking a slow sip of orange juice, Colin eyed Bradley, expression indecipherable.

Bradley shifted in his seat under the scrutiny, searching for a diversion before Colin could voice his thoughts. "I forgot our list upstairs, but I was thinking about seeing the San Diego Zoo first," Bradley ventured, then in a moment of panic added, "unless you have other plans."

Colin's brow furrowed. "Bradley."

Bradley picked up his knife and cut the last of his toast in half and again, and hoped it wasn't as obvious an attempt to avoid eye contact as it felt.

"James." Colin said again, like a sharp exhale. "We've planned this for weeks. I'm not about to go off and…" He waved his hand in the air and left the sentence hanging.

Bradley stopped massacring his breakfast to say, "I'd understand."

Colin stood. Bradley looked up at the movement in time to catch Colin motion to the waiter for the bill, and watched as Colin signed it under his own room – not that it mattered; it was all to be expensed anyway.

"Come on," Colin said, curt. Then he walked away from the table without looking back.

Bradley followed, not sure what exactly was happening but recognising Colin's 'this is not the place' tone.

They found themselves outside Bradley’s room like it was all scripted and not a spiralling out of control improv. The minute the door clicked shut behind them Colin’s arms were crossed over his chest in his classic defensive pose. The muscles in Bradley’s shoulders tensed.

“What’s this all about, then?” Colin asked, uncharacteristically direct.

“What’s this – what?” The words came out a sharp squeak. Bradley cleared his throat, and went with, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Come _on_ , James.” Colin shook his head, lips pursed. “You’ve been weird since this morning. Is it because I went for drinks with Cody?”

The name was like a trigger to Bradley’s migraine and he pressed the heel of his palm to his temple.

“Is it because he asked about your dad?”

“No!” Bradley snapped his head up to scowl at Colin. “But he was an arse to ask me that.”

“He didn’t know it was a _thing_.”

“This isn’t about that!” He shook his head; all the words that came to him revealed too much. He thought of Cody’s smug grin this morning, how Colin -- _his Colin_ \-- was just another notch on Cody’s belt. “I just didn’t think you were the sort.”

Bradley wanted the words back the minute they escaped and Colin’s eyes widened. Then, voice incredulous, Colin said, “The sort of _what_?”

His instincts screamed _retreat_ but the achy hurt that was smouldering in his chest seemed to be in control of his mouth. “You know! The sort to fall for lines from someone like _Cody Deal_.”

“First – I don’t fall for anyone’s lines. Give me a bit of credit.” Colin’s accent always thickened when he was upset and now the words were all chopped up and lyrical, vowels were softened to a whisper. Bradley had to strain to understand. “And second, what is wrong with Cody Deal?”

“He is not your type!”

“Not my type?”

“He’s all muscles and shiny hair and --” Bradley’s hands were waving, frantic. He tucked them under his arms.

“And he swings a giant hammer around on camera, being all heroic.” Colin laughed to himself, looking at Bradley with a sad smile. “He’s exactly my type.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Bradley looked away, crushed at the blatant admission. He grabbed the pile of print-outs from his trunk. The first page was San Diego’s Natural History Museum -- Colin had insisted on at least one museum between the theme parks and the surfing. Beneath that was information on another twenty touristy spots they’d mapped out for their mini-holiday. He handed it over to Colin. “I’m sure he’ll show you a good time.”

Colin looked between the papers and Bradley, gaping.

“You’re serious? I have two drinks with a bloke _because you deserted me_ and you’re ready to call off our hols? Is this about your break-up with Georgia? Are you having some sort of breakdown?”

“I am not having a breakdown!” Though, Bradley conceded, the hysterical laughter that followed that declaration was hardly convincing.

“Then what is going on here? Explain it to me because I’m having a hard time figuring out what happened from the time you went to sleep last night and this morning to make you, quite literally, lose your mind.”

“Nothing happened, okay?” Bradley refused to meet his gaze. “Nothing.”

They could hear the noise of traffic from the street below, someone honking and the screech of tires. When Bradley finally looked up, Colin was still staring and Bradley could practically see him replaying the scene from that morning in his head. Bradley fidgeted as Colin’s blinked over at him as though he could see right through to Bradley’s thoughts.

“Oh, Bradley,” Colin whispered. “You are such a idiot. Cody had had a few too many drinks. He didn’t want to drive home so he crashed on the couch in my room.”

Bradley’s eyes narrowed. “He didn’t look like he had a car when he hopped into a taxi this morning after he left the hotel.”

“Did he?” Colin laughed. “The bastard.”

“So what – he was a perfect gentleman, then?”

“Oh! Ha.” Colin rubbed the back of his neck. “Not in the slightest.” He smirked. “But I wasn’t interested. He gave up and passed out.”

Bradley tried to hide his smile but Colin saw it anyway.

“Feel better now that you know my precious gay virtue is all safe from those _Cody Deal_ types?”

Bradley laughed, at himself mostly. “A bit. I just... he’s not right for you.”

Colin tilted his head. “You don’t even see it, do you?”

“What?”

“The type,” Colin said. “The irony of you being _jealous_ that I might find Cody Deal attractive, that he might be my type.”

“You just said he wasn’t!” Bradley snapped, realising too late that he hadn’t denied the jealous part.

“No, I didn’t.” Colin walked towards Bradley with an odd little quirk to his lips. “I said I wasn’t interested in _him_. I happen to find gorgeous blond actors, with broad shoulders and arses you could bounce coins off to be very much my type. But I just like them a little less _Hollywood_.”

Colin’s hands wrapped around Bradley’s biceps then he was leaning forward and somewhere just before their lips met, Bradley finally sussed it all out. Colin’s mouth was still sweet with syrup as Bradley kissed back, wetting the kiss with a sneak of tongue. Colin’s hum of approval was like a splash of heat, knocking him breathless.

Colin pulled back, grinning. “Any more questions?”

Bradley barked a laugh, tossing the print-outs in the air and pouncing until they crashed to the bed, Colin pinned beneath him. “Yeah. When’s check-out time?”

They tumbled together on the hotel bed, snogging and laughing, chiding each other about why it had taken so long to get to this point until they were both breathless and warm, lips tingling from too many kisses.

With only ten minutes left before they’d be charged for another night if they didn’t check-out, Bradley sat up.

“If we have time after we’ve done our list,” he asked, gnawing his bottom lip, “would you like to come meet my father?”

Colin’s half-lidded eyes widened. “Yeah?” The smile that split his face was radiant.

“Yeah.” Bradley knew he was blushing, could feel the heat in his cheeks, but life was good and it was hard to care that he looked like a love struck fool when Colin was looking at him the same way.

**Author's Note:**

> [Original livejournal post](http://marguerite-26.livejournal.com/587890.html)


End file.
